


a light that never goes out

by cheinsaw



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Death, Depression, F/F, Pre-Canon, Suicide, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 17:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2397392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheinsaw/pseuds/cheinsaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuyuko is dead, much too soon. Yukari is the only one left to care for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. lacrimosa

Yuyuko Saigyouji is dead.

It's not like Yukari didn't know it was coming. She's lived as a youkai for almost four hundred years now, and, in her experience, befriending humans is always tricky. Their lifespans are short and fleeting, and they're gone in the blink of an eye. But Yuyuko, she was too sudden. She wasn't supposed to go.

Yukari almost can't process it. Just last night she was in Yuyuko's room, holding her hand (her warm, alive hand, and feeling her pulse under her skin), and Yuyuko seemed fine, like she was doing better than ever, like she was learning to handle her powers, like she wasn't as… sad. When Yukari went to visit her today, though, the room was empty, the door was open, and Yuyuko was slumped against the outer wall of the bath with a knife in her belly and blood soaking her hands, her robe, the floor.

 _You weren't supposed to go_ , she thinks over and over, _you weren't supposed to leave_. And as it sinks in, she's _dead_ , Yukari collapses down to the floor with a heartrending sob. And she wishes for the very first time in all of her four hundred years that she had the power to control the border of life and death.

 

_Dear Yukari,_

_Thank you for staying with me, but I was never meant to live. My powers are proof enough of that. I can't_ (and here, there's a large scribble, where she drew her brush violently over what she had written _) live like this anymore. Too many people are dead because of me._

(Another large black splotch on the page, but Yukari thinks she can make out the word "someday". And then the letter is over, the paper stained with tears:)

_I'm so sorry._

_Yuyuko_

 

Yukari has the sinking feeling that something awful, something she isn't mentioning, happened in the time between when they were together the night before and when Yuyuko killed herself. Holding the paper in her shaky hands, she can't think of anything to do but sit on Yuyuko's bedroom floor and cry until her head hurts and no more tears will come.

* * *

 

Someone has to figure out what to do with Yuyuko's body, and it isn't going to be her family. They were too afraid to be near her in the last few years of her short life, leaving her alone in her room all day. Yukari had been her only companion in the time her powers over death were developing, becoming strong enough to seep out unbidden and kill any human who came near her. The rest of the time she spent writing, hoping that one day she could become a poet like her father.

Yukari knows this much: her family hated her. They will want her body gone, but won't give her a proper funeral or cremation. Only one choice seems right, and before she can doubt herself she leans to cradle Yuyuko's body (it's too limp and broken and smells of iron), and slips herself through a gap, leaving the bloody knife on the floor.

The netherworld is freezing, dark mist swirling around the entire realm and pooling at Hakugyokurou in the center. Yukari has only been here once before, and doesn't plan to come again if she can help it. This place sucks the life from anyone, human or youkai, draining them until they die. Yukari is stronger than that, but nevertheless it's unsettling, the emptiness and coldness.

She sets off on foot, Yuyuko still draped in her arms, towards Hakugyokurou, dark and dilapidated. The Saigyou Ayakashi visibly looms overhead, bare branches and an unmistakable aura of death, of malice. Yukari wishes that there were a nicer place to lay the girl she loves to rest, and that she had the necessities to properly cremate the body. Yuyuko has done nothing wrong; she deserves a much nicer grave than this.

When she arrives in the gardens, she kneels at the base of the tree, and lays Yuyuko down by her side to begin the preparations. There isn't much she can do in terms of ceremonial traditions—she's no expert, and she's alone—but she can try.

She quickly opens a gap leading to her own house, frantically searching for a white cloth and some salt. She knows she has no white robe to give Yuyuko, no proper sendoff with priests and purification, but at the very least she can try to seal Yuyuko in a place she can be still, calm, restful.

She opens a few more borders. Running water from the stream in Mayohiga, to clean Yuyuko's wound and wash her body and wet her lips. And one last trip to Yuyuko's bedroom, to get a clean robe and to retrieve her brush and paper, her beloved writings. It doesn't seem right to leave Yuyuko without the poems; they're the kind of thing that Yukari would want to cremate her body with, but burying them with her seems the next best thing. She goes through the motions of this small one-person funeral in a daze, thinking all too hard about how she is preparing _Yuyuko_ for the afterlife, but it feels dreamlike and hazy.

Finally, with Yuyuko's face covered and her body dressed in a fresh robe that Yukari hopes was one of her favorites, Yukari is fairly certain she can't do any more. She reaches down, down, down to wrench a gap open beneath the soil, into the Saigyou Ayakashi's root system. And that is where she places Yuyuko's body, burying her through a broken boundary of space.

It's purely instinctive, so much that she has a hard time thinking about what she needs to do step by step. Find the border, enter the place the Saigyou Ayakashi draws all this power from, and—far below, there's Yuyuko's body, dissolve the barrier between them—seal it, deep down, far, far down, seal them together so they both can rest. Yukari feels the tree weaken, quieting itself with the girl lying underneath it. And her work is done.

She rests against the base of the tree and closes her eyes. It should be less dangerous now, its lethal powers bound up with Yuyuko's soul and body. But it doesn't stop Yukari from feeling like her vitality is slowly drifting from her.

"I love you," she says, one last time, barely a whisper, before standing up to go back to Mayohiga and grieve in peace. She blinks away tears, not wanting to leave while she's crying. "Goodbye, Yuyuko."


	2. requiem

The first time they ever meet, it is summer, and it is raining. Yukari normally hates the rain. She could go home, easily, but warm summer rain is one of the things she's grown to like, strolling through the streets of the little human village with droplets of water bouncing off her dress and shoes. She may enjoy the atmosphere, but she can't stand being cold or having soaked clothes.

The only other person in sight is a little girl with dark hair and a completely drenched, mud-covered robe, happily splashing through puddles with bare feet.

"Hello," Yukari says, drawing closer. She has a parasol. This small human girl does not. It seems very obvious to Yukari what should be done. "Aren't you cold out here?"

Not wanting to startle a human child with her gaps, she walks the child home. And _home_ , to Yukari's pleasant surprise is the Saigyouji family's house. Very interesting. She's been in the company of a tiny noble.

* * *

Yukari often finds it amusing to check up on humans she met once and never saw again, years later. Especially the ones who seemed struck by her otherworldly beauty. She knows it must be quite a bit for the humans to process when she drops in unexpectedly.

The youngest Saigyouji is different. She remembers Yukari, who helped her when she was just a child. And she is not afraid of the gap that suddenly slices through the air in her room or the youkai that tumbles gracefully out of it.

Her name is Yuyuko, and she easily becomes what Yukari would call something like a friend.

* * *

In the days after they meet again, Yukari finds herself thinking idly of this girl, of how lovely she is. And Yukari finds herself anticipating it, smiling as she tears space open from Mayohiga into Yuyuko's bedroom. She loves the happiness that lights up Yuyuko's face whenever they're together. Seeing Yuyuko smile is a treasure all its own. Yukari does not care much for humans on a personal level. Yuyuko is different.

But Yuyuko is also not an ordinary human girl. She spends most of her time inside, which is understandable, and sequestered in a room of her own with few visitors, which is not. Her parents know, they know she is dangerous, but she is their daughter, so she's kept in seclusion. If she were the child of any other family she might not be so lucky. But the price of staying alive is, of course, her freedom.

Yuyuko doesn't like to talk about the reason why: her fledgling powers over death, developing and out of control. Yukari can tell it's painful: when humans gain youkai-like powers, it typically is. They usually become youkai themselves, if their hearts aren't broken first.

One day Yuyuko accidentally shows her how, a black butterfly made of dark light materializing from her fingertips. There's no trigger, as far as Yukari can tell — it simply slips out of its own accord. Yuyuko looks speechless with terror as it flaps its tiny wings, fluttering towards Yukari.

The butterfly is cold where it lands on her skin, cold with a shock of pain, and then it suddenly disperses into air. She gasps, and Yuyuko leaps up and squeaks "No!" and Yukari can't help but feel that all of this is outside Yuyuko's control. But Yuyuko is still trying, and —

"I'm not dead, Yuyuko," she says gently.

"It touched you," she whimpers, pain and futility in her voice. "It will kill you."

Yukari draws Yuyuko close into a hug. "It would take much more than a butterfly to kill me. I promise."

"But I — whenever they touch anyone this—"

"Yuyuko," she says, sharper than she means. "Yuyuko. I'm not human. It won't hurt me."

Yuyuko is quiet as she cries. There's a chill in the room, and when Yukari opens her eyes, it's full of black butterflies. 

* * *

She isn't always sad about her situation. Some days are good, warm and bright, where they'll sit together and laugh, enjoy each other's company. Even on the worse days, Yukari still stays. She couldn't imagine leaving, especially in Yuyuko's times of need. It is Yukari who reassures her, who holds her close, who cannot die from Yuyuko's powers, who comes to love her.

"It's getting worse," she says, close to a whisper, one day, when Yukari finds her hunched in the corner of her room. "It's... out of control."

"You might be becoming a youkai," Yukari muses. "If you'd like, I could fully turn you."

"Really?" Yuyuko says, so softly Yukari almost doesn't hear.

"Well, yes, but..." She can't look at Yuyuko. "Your powers. They'd be even stronger. I'd like to, at the very least, help you control them first."

"You can do that?" Yuyuko looks up, uncurling her body to meet Yukari's eyes.

"Ah — yes, the short answer is yes. But please, please understand, I can't take them away. No matter what I do you'll always have the power to kill at your fingertips. You should be careful."

The look on Yuyuko's face is still one of joy, and it makes Yukari fleetingly remember when she was human too. Humans will cling to any chance they can get, Yukari's found. It is equally beautiful and sad.

"You're my best friend," Yuyuko says, soon after, when they're sitting on the floor together in her room. Yukari knows very well that she is Yuyuko's only friend. Nevertheless, it makes her heart swell.

"You're mine," Yukari says in return, smiling so wide it almost hurts.

 

And then it's all over, just like that, with a knife and a goodbye.

* * *

Yukari regrets leaving her alone that night. She probably will for the rest of her life, for the rest of eternity. Until Gensokyo falls, she'll live with it, that she could have stopped her best friend from dying. Yuyuko, dear, sweet, beautiful Yuyuko, who should have had so much more.

 _Yuyuko_.

Yukari turns around.

She's paler, and wearing the robe Yukari buried her in. The front is stained with dark blood around her belly, where she sliced herself open. Her eyes are glazed and dull, but when she sees that she has company, they start to focus.

"Yukari," she says, tears beginning to prick the corners of her eyes. "Oh... Yukari."

And that is all she needs to say.


	3. lumen

Yukari can't believe it at first. She must be seeing things, must be imagining that Yuyuko is with her from stress or lack of sleep. But as Yuyuko breaks down into tears and rushes towards her, she considers - there are stranger things than a girl becoming a ghost.

"You called for me, so I came back," she says, smiling even as she cries. "Yukari. Oh, _Yukari_."

"Yuyuko," Yukari laughs, in the same moment that she realizes she's crying too. "I'm... I'm so happy." She buries her head against Yuyuko's chest. No heartbeat, and she's colder. Well, that's to be expected.

They stand like that, holding each other close, for what seems like a thousand years.

* * *

 

It takes time, but Yuyuko's traumatic memories of her time as a human do fade. She slowly comes to terms with being a ghost, and Yukari watches as she smiles more and more. Tiny phantoms are drawn to her, swirling around her body. Her skin and hair fade to lighter shades than they were in her life, her eyes turning to the warm pink of cherry blossoms. She is still so beautiful.

Yuyuko takes up residence in Hakugyokurou, and Yukari helps fix it up, restore it to a place fit for Yuyuko to - not live, but spend the rest of her days. Before long Yuyuko is staying there comfortably, a half-ghost gardener at her side to care for both her and the Saigyou Ayakashi.

Yuyuko is happy, in death.

* * *

One day, she turns to Yukari and murmurs, "I feel like I've known you forever."

Yukari doesn't have the heart to tell her the truth. Instead, she leans to press her lips to Yuyuko's, and Yuyuko happily kisses her back.

* * *

When she asks for the border between spring and winter, life and death, to be weakened, Yukari doesn't refuse. It is within her capability as a youkai now, a thousand years later.

"There's a body under the Saigyou Ayakashi," Yuyuko says.

 _I know. I put you there_ , Yukari thinks. Instead, she says, "Oh?"

Yuyuko nods. "I want to make the tree bloom. If I can see the cherry blossoms I might be able to find out the relation between the Saigyou Ayakashi and the body."

Knowing Yuyuko, she won't get very far. The Hakurei shrine maidens are quite persistent about stopping those kinds of things in their tracks. So Yukari is not at all surprised when the newest, scrawniest shrine maiden comes to wake her up and remind her to repair the border already. Yukari doesn't protest.

"The body..." Yuyuko says, so quietly, the next time Yukari comes to visit her.

Yukari holds her in her arms as gently as she can. Even after all this time, she still smells just like cherry blossoms. "I know."

* * *

 

Yukari swears that she will never let such a wonderful soul suffer again. No matter what it takes.


End file.
